


The Way Forward

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post-Canon, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24232459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Five years on from the end of the war, Byleth organises a gathering at Garreg Mach. It's the first time Linhardt has seen Sylvain since the war's end, and he seems...different.-They stayed for a while, watching the stars and the sky or maybe just nothing in silence. It was a while before Sylvain spoke again. “Would you get rid of my Crest?” he asked.
Relationships: Sylvain Jose Gautier/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 15
Kudos: 58





	The Way Forward

**Author's Note:**

> This is for @cormartur over on twitter, who won one of the fics for my 300 followers giveaway! They asked for 'pretty much anything Sylvain/Linhardt' so I did my best to deliver

Five years after the end of the war that engulfed Fódlan for far too long, Archbishop Byleth organised a gathering at Garreg Mach monastery.

Linhardt would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit excited to see people again. He’d been in a research and teaching post at the Academy from pretty much the moment the war ended - he’d stopped off in Hevring territory to pick up a few things and get disowned, of course, but since ten he’d been at Garreg Mach.

He liked his lot in life, for now - the workload was relatively low, unless a student took a particular liking to him (which he discouraged, because he rather enjoyed napping), and the research was always interesting. It was the kind of job he’d probably hold for the rest of his life, barely moving, but that wasn’t really a bad thing.

Sylvain, meanwhile, had been moving up in the world. He spoke at great length during the big roundup summary of what everyone had been doing in the past five years: his father had died in the last few months, after a lengthy illness, and Sylvain was now formally Margrave Gautier. 

He was still a favourite with the ladies, he told everyone, which made Linhardt raise an eyebrow. It was a classic Sylvain line, and Linhardt supposed he’d expected it, but something about it felt...off. Linhardt couldn’t tell what.

His suspicions only heightened as he watched Sylvain during their big reunion dinner. Despite the delicious food (and plentiful wine) flowing freely around them, Sylvain seemed quiet. Compared to the performance he’d put on earlier...well, it was just that, wasn’t it? A performance.

Linhardt didn’t talk much, content to soak in the conversation around him. He hadn’t seen some of these people since the war ended, and it was good to see the ways they’d grown. Sometimes, he even felt the urge to join in himself.

As he watched, he tried to convince himself that maybe Sylvain was just being quiet because that was the person  _ he’d _ grown to become. Someone who was a little withdrawn and gave others the chance to speak rather than inserting himself into something when he had nothing to say.

But Linhardt couldn’t convince himself of that. There was something small in Sylvain’s expression that told Linhardt he should be worrying, so...he did.

“Sylvain,” he said, as the celebrations started to wrap up and excuses to head to bed chorused around the hall. “Would you like to come up to the Star Terrace for a while? Just before bed.” As he spoke, he watched as half the people at the table gave someone else a knowing look.

He supposed that was to be expected; he and Sylvain had definitely had a thing before the end of the war. Was a ‘thing’ the right way to refer to it? He didn’t know. It hadn’t been a relationship. There was no sex involved. It had been...company. A date or two. Lots of kissing. They’d never had enough of a conversation about it to define it.

The point was, the invitation clearly wasn’t a surprise to anyone except Sylvain. “Sure,” Sylvain replied, shooting the rest of the table a look before standing. Clearly he didn’t want them thinking that this was about their little thing. Linhardt couldn’t help but wonder why; did he not want that time back? Was there something else he wasn’t saying?

It was useless speculating, Linhardt supposed. He would just have to ask.

Up on the Star Terrace, the air was far cooler, and Linhardt’s head felt clearer. He took a seat on one of the benches that had been installed for stargazing, and gestured to the spot at his side. Sylvain followed his lead, moving immediately to stare up at the sky.

Linhardt joined him. There was plenty to see from here; a handful of constellations were visible between the sparse of cloud cover, and the sky was a deep black. Linhardt found it hard to focus on one star at a time, however, and eventually found himself staring at nothing. He needed to say something.

“How are you doing?” he asked. “How are you really doing, that is.”

Sylvain let out a sigh that sounded carefully not-burdened. Still hiding, then. He took a deep breath in, and then let it out. And then he spoke. “I’ve been fine, I meant that when I said it,” he answered. “Things are a little...unsatisfying, I guess?”

“Why?” he asked. Linhardt didn’t feel that way. If anything, he felt things had improved markedly since the war ended. He no longer felt like he was wading through a field of corpses, and occasionally he didn’t even dream of blood.

Sylvain, however, didn’t answer. What he’d said in their little summary sounded like he was leading a fulfilling life, and yet…

They stayed for a while, watching the stars and the sky or maybe just nothing in silence. It was a while before Sylvain spoke again. “Would you get rid of my Crest?” he asked.

Linhardt’s breathing stopped for just a moment. He supposed he could; he’d done so for Lysithea, at the war’s end. But that was because of the health problems that were almost certainly a result of her second, artificial Crest. Sylvain’s single one was natural and posed him no risk. “I could,” he replied. “Why?”

“I can’t say,” Sylvain answered, which wasn’t enough information. “Please, Linhardt. I’m not asking you lightly.”

“I can’t agree to it with no explanation,” Linhardt explained. “Crest removal...it’s dangerous for you and time consuming for me. You could be left seriously sick for a while as your body adapts, and whether you’ll recover fully at all is up to things beyond my understanding.”

“That’s fine,” Sylvain said, his tone betraying that his mouth was stretched into a smile. A fake one, Linhardt presumed, though it was too dark to make it out.

Linhardt yawned, and decided to take that as an opportunity to get out of the conversation. “We can discuss it another time if you feel like giving more details,” he said. “I’m too tired to weigh this up with you right now. I’m going to bed. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Sylvain echoed, the warmth in his tone gone. Linhardt couldn’t help but miss it.

* * *

The next evening, it was Sylvain who invited him for a private conversation as the festivities died down once more. They made their way over to the fishing pond, and Sylvain sat down at the end of the dock and tipped his head up to the sky, just as he had the night before. “Did you think any more about my request?” he asked.

Linhardt nodded. “I stand firm in my earlier judgement,” he replied. “If you want me to remove your Crest, you have to tell me why. It’s not a process to commit to lightly.”

Sylvain let out a shuddering sigh, and Linhardt waited in silence for several moments longer. “Don’t laugh?” he checked. He sounded lost, and it made something rise in Linhardt’s chest. He pushed it down; this was a serious and potentially life threatening request. He couldn’t let sentimentality cloud his judgement.

“I won’t,” Linhardt promised.

“Everything feels awful,” Sylvain said. “In theory, I’m good at governing my territory. I can do all the paperwork and manage all the accounts and deal with snooty petty lords.”

“But what about in practise?” Linhardt asked. In theory, he was a bad teacher, but in practise his students adored him. Come to think of it, Byleth had been the same when they were a professor.

“I can’t trust anyone,” Sylvain answered, his voice full of- he sounded tired. Broken, even. “They all want my Crest. They only care because of my Crest. And I’ve tried to tell myself it doesn’t matter, that if I didn’t have one then I’d be just as good, but...I don’t have any proof. And I can’t move on with my life because of it.”

It was a sad story, and one Linhardt wasn’t all that surprised to hear. Sylvain had always loathed his Crest far more than Linhardt loved them. It had been- something they argued about, at times. A reason Linhardt had accepted that whatever was between them wouldn’t work out.

“And you’re really sure you want it gone?” he asked, forcing himself to make a reply. Sylvain at least deserved some closure on this.

“Absolutely and completely positive,” Sylvain replied. “This is the only way forward. I’ve tried everything else I could think of.”

Privately, Linhardt disagreed. It was impossible that the only way Sylvain could be happy was through the use of a dangerous procedure. There had to be something safer that would just take longer. But… “If this will make you happiest,” he decided, “I’ll do it.”

* * *

Linhardt took a couple months of leave from his role at the Academy to travel back up to Gautier territory with Sylvain. It was rather short notice to pack everything he needed for the procedure in time to leave at the end of the reunion, but he was hesitant to leave it any longer. The desperation in Sylvain’s words cut deep.

Sylvain seemed a little lighter as they travelled back to Gautier. Maybe it was the weather (which was absolutely ghastly, of which Linhardt reminded him frequently enough that Sylvain pulled off his thickest winter cloak and draped it around Linhardt’s shoulders), or maybe it was the knowledge that the thing he pinned his suffering on would soon be gone.

“Ready?” he asked, once all his instruments were prepared and Sylvain was spread out on the surface in front of him. Sylvain had been uncharacteristically quiet, and he took the sleeping draught Linhardt had prepared for him without a word.

“Ready,” Sylvain confirmed. There was a slight shake to his voice, and he didn’t even offer up a smile. Moments later, he was out like a light.

The process was...trickier than Linhardt expected. Lysithea’s Crests had been artificially inserted, and removing them worked in much the same way. Sylvain’s was written into the very fabric of his being, and it was hard to remove.

He managed it though, and watched carefully for any signs of complications as Sylvain slept. His temperature rose, and he mumbled a little in his sleep, but otherwise he was fine. So long as nothing went wrong in his recovery, he was in the clear.

Technically, Linhardt had no obligation to attend to Sylvain while he recovered. Sylvain had plenty of staff attending to his estate, and one or two of them could have easily done the same for him. All Linhardt was needed for was intervention should something go wrong.

That said...he wanted to help. He’d spent a long time away from Sylvain, and the things left unsaid between them hadn’t gone away. They didn’t hurt while they’d been apart, but now he was right there, well- Linhardt didn’t want to leave him to be looked after by anyone else.

At first, Sylvain was incredibly weak. He could barely sit up, eat, or even drink. Linhardt had to help him with everything, including using the latrine. Ugh. At least there was no blood involved in aiding someone who was just utterly exhausted.

In those first two weeks, there wasn’t...there wasn’t really much to Sylvain. Exhaustion, and a lot of pain, and the occasional breathless expression of gratitude for Linhardt’s help. No more.

As Sylvain recovered, however, the change in his mood was evident. He broke out into smiles, real smiles, more often than ever before. He’d look out of the window and smile. Linhardt would come into the room and he’d smile. He smiled at his books, at his meals.

It was...strange. Slightly unsettling, but not in a bad way. Because he was happy, truly and clearly happy, for the first time in all the years Linhardt had known him.

It was- Sylvain was radiant, he really was. It made all the difference in the world to his outlook on life, and that was just from an outsider’s perspective. Linhardt could barely imagine how he was feeling inside. Even as he lay in bed all day, weakened from the procedure, Linhardt knew he’d done the right thing.

Sylvain strengthened with every day, and Linhardt knew the time of his departure was fast approaching. His leave was running short, and there was no point to staying when Sylvain no longer needed him by his side. He expressed as much to Sylvain, once he could get up and walk around on his own, maybe do an hour of work or so a day.

“You’re leaving already?” Sylvain asked, and that was...a pout? He was pouting. Goddess, it was almost hard to resist. “When do you think you’ll go?”

“In the next week or so,” Linhardt said. And then Sylvain leaned forwards and kissed him.

It wasn’t a...no, it was a surprise. Linhardt  _ was _ surprised that Sylvain’s soft lips were pressed against his. He was shocked by the warmth, the tenderness, the feeling of Sylvain’s mouth turned up in a smile. He’d never smiled while kissing him before.

It took only a moment for Linhardt to respond in kind, moving his hand to bracket Sylvain’s neck. He leaned into the touch, deepened their kiss. When they came up for air, Sylvain pressed another kiss on the side of his mouth. Then on his cheek, his nose. Linhardt could still feel the curve of his smile.

When Sylvain finally pulled away, his eyes were full of a brightness Linhardt had never seen before. It took his breath away even more than the sight of all Sylvain’s earlier happiness. “Did you like it?” he asked. Sylvain wasn’t a shy person, but he sounded almost bashful as he spoke.

“What do you think?” Linhardt asked, returning with a smile of his own. Sylvain leaned in to capture his lips again.

“Can we try for a second round?” Sylvain suggested. Linhardt didn’t need to ask for clarification to understand that Sylvain was asking for another go at their relationship.

“As long as you take it seriously this time,” he said with a hum, and Sylvain’s pout returned. “I know, I know. You’ll absolutely take it seriously this time, and if you don’t-”

“Then you tell me immediately,” Sylvain interrupted, his voice firm. That...wasn’t what Linhardt had been expecting, but it was definitely welcome. “If I’m not taking it seriously enough for you, we talk about it, and I take it more seriously. I’m not messing around, Linhardt. I swear it.”

Linhardt smiled and leaned in for another kiss. “I believe you,” he replied. “I’ll hold you to that, you know.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed, pls consider leaving a comment and maybe following me on twitter @samariumwriting


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